The Monkey's Fist

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Officially, this is "hook and loop fastener" -- known to everyone as Velcro

Vero Beach is also where I Hit.The.Wall, melted down and hated cruising. The town is nicknamed "Velcro Beach" among cruisers, because people tend to get "stuck" there and stay there far longer than they had planned . Usually they stay because the place is pleasant enough, lots of social opportunities to meet other cruisers, easy access to practical necessities, and inexpensive and secure docking, good restaurants and a nice beach. It's far enough south that it's finally warm, another reason for people to stay a bit longer than they originally planned if they were tired of the grind of pushing steadily southward. That's not normally been the case for us; I was never particularly taken by the town. Our friends Larry and Suzi of the Frugal Mariner blog are former cruisers who were the ultimate victims of "velcro." They bought a house in Vero Beach when they decided to move ashore. While we were in town they were excellent hosts and showed us a couple of nice restaurants, the art museum and the botanical gardens, as well as their own lovely nautical-themed house, and it was plain that they loved their new adopted hometown, but for whatever reason that town still just didn't click for us.

We were having interesting conversations with pleasant people, and were safe from any bad weather. But I was frustrated. We couldn't go on because of high winds, so we were stuck longer than we'd planned to be there ... velcroed! And not by our own choice, which made it infinitely worse. Although sticking around gave us a chance to join in to the regular Thursday evening happy hour jam session, still, I wanted to be moving again. I was frustrated, in fact, I was done. I was sick of doing the logistics, the elegant dance of planning I usually enjoyed -- balancing the timing of the tides, weather routing, picking secure anchorages. I didn't feel like I was having 7 years of great cruising experiences, I felt like I was having the same experience, 7 times. The trip suddenly became a grind. We'd have one good day, then a series of windy ones, then another good one, followed by a series of windy ones. On the good days we'd run from the safe anchorage we were in, to the next safe spot, where we'd hunker down and wait for the next nice day and time to run again. I was ready to quit and try something else. Maybe camping in Alaska; or going back to Michigan and housesitting; parking the boat someplace and buying a car, or an RV, and exploring the Rocky Mountains; kicking the tenants out of our condo and moving back ashore for a while; going to the Galeon again...I didn't know what I wanted, but whatever it was wasn't what I had right now.

I tried counting my blessings. Shoot, some of my friends had it so much worse than being trapped in Vero Beach by high winds. Some of them were still stuck in North Carolina or Virginia (in November) with boat issues. I should be grateful that we were warm, and with a boat that was performing great. But it doesn't work like that, comparisons don't. There will always be someone better off than you, and someone worse off. But reality is what you feel right now, and what I felt was ... resentment. And even though many people we talked with thought our life afloat was a wonderful fantasy, we knew that really it wasn't all beach drinks with little paper umbrellas and magical sunsets. But still, I had chosen this life, and if I didn't like it then I had the power (and perhaps even the obligation?) to change it. But there was really nothing wrong, we were safe even if trapped by weather, which only made me more frustrated. I needed some perspective. My friend Beth said it best - the secret to her happiness is knowing the difference between an inconvenience and a tragedy. Logically, I knew that eventually the weather would moderate and we'd move on. We wouldn't turn 85 years old and still be sitting in Vero Beach waiting for calmer winds to continue south. But I was having trouble convincing my hindbrain of that.

The weather finally moderated and let us move on, but I muttered and grumbled every morning as we got ready to get underway. I was so done. Life was too short. This ultimate frustration had happened to me once before, and there was no specific thing that made it better, it just gradually lifted, and lifted some more. This time was the same. As soon as the weather lightened enough that we could move on, my mood lightened as well. There were new places to visit, cruising friends to connect up with. Onward!

(Note: My apologies, somehow the draft version of this post was published on 12/31/16. I had had a bunch of edits that were lost. 1/1/17 I've tried to update incorporating as many of the edits as I could remember. Disappointing.)

Monday, November 21, 2016

With the boat put back together, the weather settled again, ICW generally back in shape, our doctors' appointments complete, early voting done, things shuffled into storage and back, and generally the mess of errands necessary before a long trip accomplished, we were ready to sail south. We left St Augustine on the high tide, mid-afternoon of election day. We only traveled about 10 miles before anchoring for the evening, but we were in a different world - quiet, peaceful, surrounded by nature instead of city noises. Our cruise had begun!

To say we were disappointed in the election results would be beyond an understatement, but we were soothed a bit watching the pelicans going about their morning fishing like every other morning; at least for now the world goes on. We had our coffee and breakfast smoothies, raised the anchor and continued south. There was much evidence of the storm; buildings with blue tarps where roofs should be, broken docks, boats washed up on shore; but the ICW itself was generally where it belonged and almost all the markers were in place.

We spent the next four days in perfect weather, easy traveling by day and wide open anchorages with views of stars at night. Just the two of us, in our little private bubble. Private, that is, except for leaping dolphins and diving pelicans. Quiet, except for the blaze of orange glory that was nearly every sunrise and sunset. Solitary until just before Vero Beach we heard a familiar boat name on the VHF and friend Jody from Annapolis came past on their catamaran, and we photoed each other's boats underway before, faster than us, they pulled away ahead. Dan and I both function best with alternating solitary and social segments in our lives, and our brief connection with Jody was the last "solitary" we were going to have for a while.

Jody's photo of us underway near Vero Beach

Vero Beach is a popular spot with cruisers, and people tend to stay a while on its sheltered moorings. It's a practical spot, with easy free bus service to necessities like grocery and hardware stores. For us it was also a chance to reconnect with some folks we'd met on our first cruise, when we were trapped for days by a nor'easter in South Carolina, and stayed in touch via Facebook. They had since sold the boat and moved ashore and were happy to show us their town.

They took us to the lovely McKee Botanical Gardens near Vero

Nope, it's not pixels; the garden had an exhibit of Legos sculptures!

Our next planned stop was Stuart, and some marina time. It was also going to be a chance to connect with fellow bloggers from s/v Octopussy; and the Cynical Sailor and His Salty Sidekick. A hilarious gathering in our cockpit ensued, including a spirited debate on the best use for their last can of pumpkin puree -- pumpkin bread, or curried cauliflower and garbanzo stew, or Caribbean pumpkin soup, or something else. (We had two extra cans of pumpkin in our locker -- hey! this is not a limited resource!) It was great fun introducing friends to other friends, showing off our boat, and meeting their son again. He was a kid when we left, now at 14 he's clearly becoming an independent person.

Stuart is the halfway point. Another couple days of rest here and then we continue on the second half of our adventure.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

We’ve dealt with hurricanes before, even major ones. But earlier this month, predictions for Matthew in our area suddenly went from tropical storm force fringes brushing us to a direct hit from a Category 3 or 4. Our marina was in the “mandatory evacuation” zone. We considered riding out the storm in the marina lounge, like we did in the marina in Annapolis during hurricane Sandy a few years ago, but even that sounded dicey given the predictions for Matthew. So we spent the day before the storm alternately looking nervously at the steadily worsening weather forecasts and preparing the boat for the coming storm and evacuation. We’d been through the hurricane prep drill too many times before, sails, bimini and all canvas off, dock lines doubled or tripled, boat moved to the center of the slip and bow turned into the direction of expected wind.

Screen shot of my phone at the height of the storm, showing the eye just off St Augustine

We had turned down our option for a haul out based on the earlier, milder forecast, and now it was too late; given the then-latest forecast of 100-115 mph winds, it was likely we’d return to find our boat-home and all of our possessions at the bottom of the bay. Having no car was a choice that had always seemed practical in the walkable historic downtown, but now it further complicated our evacuation, and left us stunningly vulnerable. No rental cars were available (we tried!) Several friends invited us to stay at their houses outside of the evacuation zone, and even offered to come pick us up to get us there. But that borrowed ride would have room only for the bare essentials, maybe a single suitcase or backpack each. That certainly wouldn’t let us save many possessions, sentimental mementos, family heirlooms, or even the comfort of familiar everyday items. We looked around at what we could take, and the many things we’d have to leave behind, and said a likely goodbye to our floating home of 15 years and everything in it. I never anticipated how scary it would feel to be so dependent, so powerless, as when I put out the panicky call for help to my Facebook friends.

We packed the things that were portable and critical into our backpacks: our passports, ship’s papers, medicines, laptops, the external hard drive with all our family photos and music. Bottled water, cans of tuna, energy bars, flashlights. And a few things for our aching hearts: grandpa’s fountain pen, our crew passes from our two summers on El Galeon, a crystal obelisk my mother had given me in the days before she died, hastily wrapped for protection in a tea towel with a sketch of a great blue heron on it, the towel itself a gift itself from our friend Cathy. Our coffee mugs. A small notebook of handwritten recipes. Toothbrushes and toothpaste, eyeglasses. I bounced back and forth between packing for a weekend visit to friends, and packing the only things we’d have for starting our lives over. I looked at the velvet pouch containing the ashes of our dog Mandy – she would have been frightened of the coming storm, but we had no room. I took photos of the artwork we would have to leave behind, much of it handmade originals, and all with deep significance and sentiment for us.

This photo from the Miami newspaper shows the north (breakwater) dock of our marina, protecting the interior slips from the worst of the storm's force. The breakwater did its job, sacrificing itself in the process, and will take months to fix. At the height of the storm surge the dock came up over the pilings.

We had planned to set sail for a winter in the Keys in less than a month, and the boat was almost ready to go. We had just loaded scuba gear and kayak and scooters out of storage and back aboard. I looked at the lockers full of newly laid-in provisions – foods that would never nourish us, wine we would never use to toast the sunset at anchor. Then I kissed the helm (the beautiful antique bronze wheel we’d found last year to replace the standard modern stainless steel one that the boat had come equipped with) and silently apologized for not having protected her better, adjusted the dock lines one last time, and turned away…

One of the first to respond to our call for help was Adam Morley, a marina neighbor who operates eco-tours from our dock, and is also campaigning for local office. “I’ve been thinking,” he said when he showed up at the dock smiling encouragingly against the blustery gray sky and already-rising wind. “I have a car that I need moved to higher ground for the storm. What if, instead of driving you to your friend's house, I drive you to my house and you can take my car? Solve both our problems at the same time?” I may never know if this was truly an elegantly-crafted win/win solution, or a gracious way to offer more help than we could have expected, while not having it feel so obviously like charity.

What kind of person lends a (rather new and nice) car to someone he doesn’t know well? Maybe someone who really believes people are good and can be trusted. Maybe someone who really wants to help every way he can. By “not know us well,” I mean he had seen us around the dock, we said hi when we passed, we’re members of the same Facebook group for local boaters, and that’s about it; he may or may not have even known our last name! Many people offered rides and places to stay, but the loan of a car was … different, in a rather gigantic way. More empowering at a time when we already were very vulnerable – and from a practical point of view, it allowed last minute errands to better prepare our home (extra docklines!) and the ability to bring more of our possessions to safety as we evacuated.

I knew Adam as an environmental educator, someone who led eco-tours or trash cleanups. But now I was seeing a far more personal side, as we visited a neat, cozy tiny home on a secluded piece of property. The house is powered by 11 huge solar panels, which we helped him remove from the roof in preparation for the storm. The solar panels also charge the all-electric car he loaned us. Living on a sailboat and traveling primarily by wind power ourselves, we really noticed his small eco-footprint. It was inspiring to see him demonstrate how a low-impact lifestyle can work – truly “practicing what he preaches.” I had already appreciated his candidacy based on his strong environmental commitment. Now I could add his personal generosity and caring to the assessment. If it is true, as Malcolm S. Forbes put it, that “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him,” then Adam's help would be a perfect example of pure altruism, because as we joked when he arrived, we can’t even vote for him, because we're not in his district.

The independence and control that came with having access to a car was wonderful. In a few frantic hours we were able to save some of our precious things. We removed many of our possessions, clothing, tools, artwork, scooters, the brass ship’s clock and barometer that were a gift from the former owner, even our nesting pots and pans. Everything was hurriedly, randomly, stuffed into laundry bags, grocery bags, whatever came to hand, and wedged into every available space in the car. When one piece of artwork didn’t release easily from the wall I ripped it off, damaging the frame in the interest of speed. I pulled out my pocketknife to cut the line holding the conch shell we’d found on a Bahamian beach that now acted as a paperweight for a roll of paper towels. If the predicted 100-115 mph winds materialized, we’d feel a bit better with a few familiar things around us as we started over. It was still horrible to contemplate losing our home, but very comforting to realize that we were able to bring almost all of the possessions we valued most with us. This was a totally different frame of mind than when we expected to have only what we could carry in our backpacks, and gave interesting insights into my relationship with my “stuff,” the surprising importance of some possessions. Now that we have streamlined and downsized to fit on the boat and have very few possessions, almost every one of them is significant in some way. Even Mandy’s ashes came along, as we moved things to the car in the rising wind and rain.

One of the silly sentimental items we were able to keep: geckoes in the kitchen are traditionally reputed to bring good luck (probably because they eat the insects!) This one, purchased when we visited Aruba with my parents in 1997, is glued to the cabin trunk in the galley.

Friend and fellow boat-owner Rachel had invited us to stay with her and her boyfriend in her large house just about 5 miles south of town. Her two sons and their friend would be there as well, as their school was also being evacuated. It would be a bit of a house party, although a stressful one, and we could keep each other’s’ spirits balanced. The three guys were deaf, and I’d be curious to learn about sign language and their way of communicating – another way of keeping my mind off the storm.

We piled our possessions in a sad little pile in the corner of her garage and she showed us to a lovely guest room so surrounded by branches that it felt like a child’s tree house. My logical brain was worried about limbs falling on the roof; my creative brain was enchanted. We spent the next 3 days drinking far too much beer, obsessively tracking the storm path on our cellphones, and (in my case) learning ASL. It was quite amazing! I learned basic politeness words (please, thank you, good morning, good night), and the priorities (eat, beer). They invented a sign for me that is my first initial (J, a pinky tracing a hook in midair), followed by a gesture invoking the lock of blue-dyed hair at my forehead. Oh yeah, and I also learned the sign for "hurricane" -- two "H"s swirling around each other. This hand language is half practicality and half pure poetry; Dan called it “ballet of hands.” I really enjoyed the chance to communicate with more humans, and get a different insight into their way of seeing the world.

In our private moments, the two of us thought about what to do next, if we really lost the boat and everything but the small pile of possessions in the corner of Rachel’s garage. We talked about getting another boat, maybe a different kind, smaller and more agile; and then wondered if we’d always be making comparisons to Cinderella. We considered going back aboard the Galeon, where our truly homeless state would be an advantage. Nothing left behind to worry about while we travelled with them, and not paying rent or many other bills would let us rebuild finances quickly. Maybe we’d get an RV and do some land traveling for a while, the Rocky Mountains or the great American desert. Maybe we’d try house- and pet-sitting like our friends on Roaming About are doing. Or we’d just rent a furnished apartment. Where would we want to live? The possibilities were daunting in a way we hadn’t felt since choosing a major in college. What did we want the rest of our lives to look like, if we didn’t have our current track?

The four of us spent the actual storm day on the patio, the sheltered side of the house, chatting idly and watching tree branches break. It was hard to stay focused on anything, reading was pretty much out of the question (or, more correctly, remembering what I read.) We all had our cellphones and tablets and checked the weather every time a hurricane update was issued. I was heartened when the newest prediction was for 70-90 mph winds. You know it’s bad when 70-90 is “good” news. Well, it was good compared to the previous 100-115! I was pretty certain that the marina could survive that level, and confident with the way we had prepared, that the boat would too.

Amazingly, by evening it was all over; the wind died down and the sun came out. We went for a walk through the neighborhood, not that anyone was leaving any time soon; a giant tree had fallen across the main road and we had no word on whether the flood waters had yet receded down town. Neighbors were coming out to their houses to chat and compare notes on damages; most initial assessments were that here at least, it was fairly minor.

No one's driving down this road any time soon!

The car that saved our sanity. I was so taken by the irony of the model name, "Leaf," surrounded by the fallen leaves and twigs.

The guys saw what I was amused by, and staged this photo, dragging limbs from all over the driveway to surround the car.

The next morning Rachel and Charles took their bikes to downtown to check on our boats. They sent us a text that set us cheering; a photo of our boat sitting quietly in our slip, lit by the morning sunshine as though nothing had ever happened. But our relief was quickly tempered when they told us that at the moorings where their two boats had been, was just empty water. An hour or so later they found the boats, washed up on land and damaged beyond repair.

The marina, the entire historic downtown area, was still closed to returning evacuees but even if it had been open we would have stayed the extra night at our friends’ house to hang out and just offer what support we could as they processed their loss. Not that there was much we had to offer, from our comfortable vantage of knowing our own boat had survived. We held what amounted to an Irish wake for s/v Polaris and s/v In2the Wind. Stories of past trips with their beloved boats were shared; we laughed, cried, and drank a lot of beer.

Finally, the next day we were allowed to return. We packed our possessions back into Adam’s borrowed car and set out for home. The weather was flawless, as though the hurricane had sucked all the bad weather out and there was nothing left but beautiful blue skies and mild, dry breezes. Damage was widespread, but unpredictable. One building looked nearly destroyed, the one next to it seemingly unaffected. Some houses were disasters, others were merely mildly inconvenienced. The same at the marina; all the boats were still floating, but damage was unpredictable. The strong wind (our neighbor clocked 85 mph) had blown our radar reflectors off the rigging and broken the anchor light at the top of the mast. Our short waterline length – at 33 feet overall and 25 foot waterline we are small for a cruising boat by modern standards – combined with waves of just the wrong period had us hobbyhorsing violently in the slip and broken two docklines. Our bow slammed the finger pier on the other side of the slip, but we did more damage to the dock than the dock did to us. Other boats that had done less preparation had no damage, different hull configuration, different location in the current, different windage, who knows? That’s luck. You can influence, but not control, everything in life.

The rest was, happily, anticlimactic. It all proved exactly what our sailing mentor David had taught us many years ago. “It takes four days to have a hurricane on a boat: a day to get ready, a day to have the storm, a day to rest up, and a day to put things back together. And that’s if there’s no damage!” It took us exactly that. On Day 4 we returned Adam’s car and gradually put things back in their places. We watched the flooded historic downtown come back surprisingly quickly, and had a celebratory beer at our local bar the moment they reopened. As for the damage repairs, a single tube of PC-11 and some paint fixed the damage to the hull, and three trips up the mast replaced the radar reflectors and rewired the anchor light. We decided to give it a few weeks for the Coast Guard and local captains to assess the situation on the ICW and the inlets, whether the channels had changed and where buoys were moved off-station by the storm. And studying those reports it seems that pretty much right on our original schedule we’ll be ready to sail south for the winter. Remember what I said earlier about luck? We had it!

Damage to Cinderella's bow -- good thing we have a very thick hull!

But as I mentioned, we did more damage to the dock than the dock did to us! This is the other side of our slip. The marina also had cracked concrete, twisted finger piers, broken dock boxes.

Putting things back together: Dan in the rigging replacing the radar reflectors

Coming back to a quiet routine of everyday life after our wonderful summer was going to be something of a shock to our systems. We were looking forward to relaxing quiet time alone together on our boat, but at the same time I wondered if it would feel a little ... boring, and lonely. Plus, it was my birthday August 11 and without being surrounded by the wonderful young energy of my Galeon friends I was feeling my age a bit. Hard to explain, after being a rock star all summer, would I fade into quiet obscurity, just some random semi-invisible old person? I didn't feel old inside! I've always thought that gray hair looked great with tan skin, as long as the haircut had a sense of style. Without a touch of edginess in the cut, I worried that my no-nonsense hair cut, along with gray hair, would just look like "old lady who just gave up on her appearance" And anyway, I needed something to symbolize that I wasn't the person I used to be. I wanted nautical, I wanted a little bit rebellious, and a little bit fun.

Dyeing my whole head of silver curls would either look pathetic or Bozo-the-clown-ish, but fortunately I remembered a girl on one of the other tall ships who I had gotten friendly with during the tour. She had a streak of pink and gold hair in an otherwise short dark head, and it looked really good and quite distinctive, but not super dramatic. Could I replicate that vibe in a more adult look?

Enter my stylist Sheri, who totally read my mind, created a perfect cut and fun color look in what she called "mermaid-y" blue and green, and even told me what color shirts to wear to show it off. I was delighted with the reactions of strangers, who complemented me in the grocery store, the parking lot, on the street. This kind of old lady blue hair, I can do!

Here is the text of the post I wrote for the Galeon's blog. Still having issues with photos, I'll update it eventually.

We’re back home after 3 months on El Galeon, but we’re not the same people we were when we left. Oh, we are stronger, thinner, tanner – working on a tall ship and living in the outdoors and eating the marvelous Mediterranean diet will do that to you – but that’s not what I meant.

Every ocean trip we’ve been on in over 20 years of sailing has been amazing, even the ones with storms and waves and lightning bolts. Everyone has made us smaller, humbler, reminding us that we are just a tiny speck on the ocean; and simultaneously made us larger, as we stretched our eyes and minds to reach the horizon, for 360 degrees seeing no works of humans at all but our tiny ship. It has been a clearing of the mental clutter and a giant reset of our perspective on our place in the world. This trip did more, because instead of sailing a modern boat, we were on a 16th century replica, so it also reset our place in time.

Why would we, two Americans, sign up to live and work on a Spanish ship? Doing jobs we didn’t know, working with people we didn’t know, and in an unfamiliar language? Most of the crew were working for their marine careers and gaining experience; we obviously are no longer career-building. And we already live on our own sailboat, so we already can go sailing whenever we want.
Why? To experience (as always) the glory of the sea and to see new places that in some cases we might not have chosen on our own. But also for the fun of sailing a different kind of ship and the opportunity to experience it all from a whole ‘other time period, the 16th century instead of the 21st.

There are no luxuries for the body aboard – 20 of us live in a dormitory of bunk beds and shared bathrooms. Sometimes we had only cold saltwater showers. We were working outdoors in all weather, day or night, mild and sunny or cold and rainy. I never felt I got quite enough sleep, underway or in port, when the off going watch woke me for my watch. Of course on days off you could sleep as late as you wanted, but those were the days you most wanted to get up early to get out and explore the towns the ship visited!

No luxuries of the body, but at the same time, there are many luxuries of the spirit. At sea … no matter how many times I’ve been there, it’s still amazing … and even more so on this sturdy replica. There is no ship built big enough that the sea cannot be bigger, yet, I always felt safe on the Galeon. I called the 1300-mile passage around Nova Scotia and up the St Lawrence Seaway “whales and gales” because that’s what we had – 40-knot sustained winds on the nose, at just a few degrees above freezing on one midnight watch … and whales jumping completely out of the water and doing backflips for us. We had fog and phosphorescence and shooting stars, sunsets and dolphins.

In port, this wonderful construct of a floating historical museum is a teaching platform. I loved helping people understand the historical context, the scale of the ship and what the Atlantic crossing to Spain’s colonies in the new world must have been like, the boldness and enormity of the venture and how bad things must have been in Europe to make people think this was their best option. And in answering their questions and painting that picture for them, I internalized it for myself; to learn – to really feel – what it would have been like in 16th century and get that mental “reset” in time that I mentioned earlier.

As spectacular as the ship is, though, what really made our time aboard extraordinary was the crew. We loved the dedicated people we worked with, who worked hard and played hard. We’re in our sixties, they are mostly in their twenties, which made us as old as – if not older than – their parents. And nothing simultaneously keeps you young, and makes you feel old, as being welcomed into their company and given the opportunity to learn words and jokes and Spanish customs, and make a contribution to the ship’s educational and outreach mission. Our command of the language was only rudimentary. I can say things useful to our everyday life on the ship: “Make that line fast,” or “pass me a napkin, please,” but always in present tense and never the level that would allow us to have those deeper conversations that passing time on the midnight watch is so conducive to: “Tell me about your home in Spain,” or “What are your plans after the Galeon?” Yet, despite the barrier, the friendships were real.

In the weeks and months to come, I will forget many things. I’ll probably forget how to say “port” and “starboard” in Spanish, and the exact sequence for turning on the video projector. But I’ll never forget the sights we saw and most of all the wonderful crew we shared our lives with on the ship.

We loved Newburyport! Highly educated and politically liberal, we felt very comfortable there. So much so that we determined to come back to explore the town more thoroughly when we rented a car to drive back home in August. More on that later; I've already posted several photos from our weekend there. But in my memories that stop really was all about the people. The wonderful maritime history museum that hosted the ship held a reception our first night. I got into a conversation with a very elegant gentleman who invited any of the crew to come for tea and visit the historic house he and his wife owned in town. It was only later after he gave me his business card that I learned he was a distinguished professor at MIT. (Our schedule was too crazy for tea that weekend, but we did catch them on the return trip later in the summer.) Our awesome photographer friend Joe from Annapolis brought his wife and grandchildren for a tour of the ship, followed by a lovely lunch. And we met IRL fellow blogger Liesbet and Mark from Roaming About, who I had first connected with during the A to Z challenge in April; Mark's parents live in Newburyport. She gifted me some real Belgian chocolate hand-carried back from a recent European trip. The taste was so real that a little went a long way; I managed to ration and hoard it to last me the entire 3-month cruise.

A few pix from the town:

Photographer friend Joe made this spectacular candid portrait of Dan during lunch; and we didn't even know it was happening.

On the foredeck, hosting a personal tour

Spectacular example of knotwork at the Maritime Museum.

Closeup of the center section of the above art

One night they hosted a flamenco dancer and live music. The dancer was an inspiring story. She grew up in Japan and saw her first flamenco dance on television. She was so fascinated that scarcely two weeks later she moved to Madrid to study, not speaking a word of Spanish. Sixteen years later, she gave as truly passionate performance that evening on our ship.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

I've always been a big fan of posting (or at least drafting posts) in near-real time while things are still fresh in your mind. But this summer as circumstances and bandwidth precluded that, I learned that an interesting thing happens over time ... the true highlights stand out, as I learned in this post I wrote for the website of the foundation that owns the ship:

Here on Life Afloat I hope to augment this post in future with notes from my personal log, and pictures ... lots of pictures. Meanwhile, it was an honor to be part of the ship, and an honor to write for their site.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Our job this morning: get the ship ready for visitors. That included sweeping and mopping (a.k.a swabbing) the decks, opening the cannon ports, and crawling over under and around various obstacles to turn on the videos music and projectors. Then at the end Dan couldn't find his headlamp (which as you see is on his forehead). Darn! Hanging out with all these twenty-something sailors simultaneously keeps us young, and makes us feel old!

Underway time! First, though, a great lunch, served up here in the galley by our ship's cook.

A misty overnight passage from New Bedford to Newburyport, MA

People on shore clapped and cheered -- and photoed -- as we went through the Cape Cod canal. The crew of the off watch, for their part, waved back, and were sightseeing and playing in the rigging.

Running ahead of schedule and we have to wait around near to sea buoy for several hours for the tide. What better way to spend the time than a safety drill? The results here were disappointing to everyone. It took us quite a while; our hypothetical man overboard probably succumbed to hypothermia. Guess we need more of these drills.

What a reception we got in Newburyport! The docks were packed! People cheered and whistled, they were crazy-excited to see us. I wonder if this is what it would have been like in the old days, when the ship arrived after months or more at sea?

When I posted on Facebook that we were in Newburyport, my cousin-by-marriage Sylvia gave me the address of her grandfather's house in town, the source of many nostalgic happy memories for her. We walked over to check it out and snap this front-door photo.

A beautiful old stone wall on a residential street.

Pedestrian plaza, including one of the largest children's playground I've seen in a "high-rent district." Nice note, what it says about a town that they'd give up the tax income from another shop, to provide an open space for the citizens. We walked around town on our break, including a stroll circling the town square (which, to complete a bad pun, was actually triangular).

Couldn't resist this street sign!

The "red hat ladies" do pirate style!

We were in the newspaper every day.

Turnout was crazy -- we had two or three thousand visitors each day. We had breakfast events, open all day 10-7 as usual, then special evening events. No one had planned on that level of success - we ran out of printed tickets. We ended up collecting them, counting them, and then running them back to the ticket booth to be reissued to the next day's visitors. Cool way to save trees. But the tix themselves were so pretty that we had many many people who wanted to keep them for souvenirs.

Finally underway again for Portland. We had fair winds for a while and deployed the main sail ... which is so big I couldn't fit it all in one photo!

Thursday, June 2, 2016

An old whaling town, then industrial mill town, now a big fishing center, but trying to be known for the bigger context of their maritime history, which is why they invited us. We were treated to free passes to the local whaling museum, a huge, spectacular collection. My favorite oddity from the town was the large Portuguese population -- lots of folks from the Azores who got into the whaling in the 19th century. And a Portuguese restaurant gifted us coupons for free Portuguese beers in our welcome packages. We took advantage of the coupons and also tasted their cod cakes. Different from the fish cakes we're used to in the South, in these the fish was so finely minced it was almost pureed, mixed with fresh herbs and mashed potatoes, and then fried. Very light, very tasty, something we're hoping to try and replicate when we're back aboard Cinderella.

Goodbye, Wilmington, and goodnight. We are underway!

Full moon in the rigging

Old meets new. The town of New Bedford is trying to expand its reputation from being known as a fishing village to highlight other aspects of its maritime history; that is why we are here.

What do a couple of people who live on a floating tall ship museum do on their "dia libre" (day off)? Why, visit a local maritime history museum, of course!

Pavement photos: Here are the ends of a crosswalk in New Bedford. Somebody in public works has a sense of humor!!

El Galeon docked in New Bedford, view from the whaling museum. My favorite visitor in this town had a conversation with me about the nature of the frontier that is such a part of the American psyche. His claim is that we had a frontier that was ultimately maritime in our roots, long before Hollywood romanticized the cowboy image of "frontier." Food for thought?

Friday, May 27, 2016

We're nearly net-less, and on the free days we have we're exploring town, not blogging (sorry!) Posting intermittent pix to Life Afloat's facebook page, and will get a good update here after June 1, when we have 2 weeks in Portland. Till then:

Underway in good weather, we do maintenance. Here Dan is polishing some of the brass plaques and awards that the ship has received.

Keeping watch.

It's just a blob in this photo -- sea turtles mating!

And the requisite sunset photo.

Mackerel skies and mare's tails make tall ships carry short sails...

Sure enough, here's the next day's weather. Windy and chilly; Dan and I alternated at the helm for 4 hours.